digibyte - Gartner's crystal ball predicts 17% digital marketing spend boost

November 2, 2014

Dyslexia mode

Summary:: Gartner says over half of organizations are set to spend 17% more on digital marketing in 2015.

Crystal-ball-currency-money-price-business-predict-future

OK, that's Halloween out of the way, so it's now officially nearly the holiday season, so time for all and sundry to dust off their crystal balls and start producing predictions for 2015.

First off the starting block we have Gartner with the claim that 51% of companies plan an average increase of 17% in their digital marketing budgets next year.

The bigger you are, the bigger the percentage of revenue will go on the marketing budget. Companies with revenue of $5 billion or more plan for 11%, compared with 9.2 per cent for those with revenue between $500 million and $1 billion.

Other numbers and predictions of note:

Some 50% of companies plan an increase in overall marketing budgets, with the average 2015 increase will be 10.4 per cent.
Of those, the ones that report outperforming competitors said their planned 2015 increase will be 13.6%.
The highest marketing technology spend in 2014 was for improved customer experience.
Some 68% of respondents said that their company had a separate digital marketing budget.
Some organisations have a digital marketing budget in total (32% of respondents), others in detail (36%), while others have incorporated digital marketing into each function of the marketing budget (23% ) or none of the above (8%).
Expenditures for digital advertising will grow in 2015, as brands, ad agencies and publishers invest in ways to deliver more-relevant advertising to people.
In 2015, digital advertising will share its top ranking with mobile marketing.

Laura McLellan, research vice president at Gartner, says:

The line between digital and traditional marketing continues to blur. It's less about digital marketing than marketing in a digital world. Hence, marketers manage a much more balanced and integrated marketing mix than in previous years, which were characterised by online and offline silos. The resulting digital experience moves customers toward a more self-service buying model, allowing reductions in sales budgets that were designed around older, physical models.

The predictions are based on Gartner's Digital Marketing Spending report, which itself is based on a survey of 315 individuals located in the US, Canada and the UK.

My take

I predict...the first of many.